Secrets of a stone
by stilljustme
Summary: She used to talk to his grave when he was dead. Now Oliver's home again, but things aren't really easier. So she comes back to talking to ghosts. And she's not the only one.
1. Chapter 1

**I've just seen the first two episodes and already am totally obsessed with the series!  
Any comments are very welcome.**

All through the service it had poured down hard, as if to punish them all for giving up on the two men, but now it the sky was clear again. Night was creeping through the garden, cold and empty.  
The first night she would have to officially live without her father and brother.

Thea hugged herself firmly as she ran down to the fresh graves, shivering from the chilly breeze wavering through the grass, the house, through her head. It made her want to break down and cry like her mother had done. It made her want to die like her father had.  
Yes. He was dead. Her father, this big, strong, stern man who had built this house and let her ride on his knees even if she felt too old for it now… he was gone. He would never come back.

Thea stood in front of her father's grave, reading the words on the pale marble over and over again. She had no tears left to cry, not today. They would come again, she knew, for the rest of her life. "I love you, dad" she whispered hoarsely. "And I'm gonna make you proud. I'll get all A's, you'll see."  
Was that really all she could promise? All anybody could ever be proud of when looking at her?

"It's all your fault, you know" she snapped, her eyes still glued to Robert Queen but her speech directed to the other one. The one she couldn't look at, not yet, or she knew she would die. She was only twelve, how on earth was she supposed to get through this?

"Don't you think I believe that shit, Ollie" she whispered, forcing her voice to sound firm, "yes, I just said shit. And I'm gonna say it again, you hear me? This is all… bullshit. You're not dead. You can't be. You can't leave us here, just mum and me, you promised you'd always be there for me! You promised you would protect me from everything, every time! You said you'd smash the head of every boy who dumps me and I haven't even been asked out yet! You can't be dead!" Her voice got louder, giving her enough strength to finally turn to the other stone that marked what should be the last rest of her big brother. Her protector. Her best friend in the whole world.  
Maybe she would once learn how to live without her dad – you were supposed to live without your parents, weren't you? After some forty or fifty years, she could do this – but how should she keep on living without Ollie?

Ollie. _Oliver Queen. 1985-2007. A son and brother whose light was dimmed out far too soon.  
_Thea dug her fingers into her arms till it hurt, but that couldn't stop the tears from flowing again, harder than they had on the funeral.  
"You can't…" she protested weakly, but the stone didn't answer her. It just stood there in the night, mocking her, laughing at her grief. _He won't come back_, the marble shone out to her. _Never again. You're alone, Theodora. You will never be happy again._

"Shut up!" Unable to control her thoughts anymore, Thea threw herself at the gravestone and started hitting it. "Shut up and give me my brother back!" She felt the pain, each time her knuckles crashed onto the hard marble, and it felt good. It felt like she could control at least anything – and if it was only smearing her blood onto the stupid stone that was destroying her life.

"Thea? God, Thea, what are you doing there?"  
Her mother's voice was as weak as she felt. Slowly, Thea stood up.  
"You're not dead" she swore again, "I will not let you. We'll be here, both, when you come home. We'll be here!" She pressed her fingers to her mouth and licked the blood from it. "I'm coming, mum!"  
"And you'll be coming home, too, Ollie" she added quietly. "Please come home!"


	2. Chapter 2

It rained again as she ran out to the gravestones, just like it had five years ago. She remembered it, every word the priest had said. Every word Walter had said then, going on about what he had learnt from her father, and how much he and Oliver would be missed by all who knew them.  
Bullshit.

Thea remembered the confusion she had felt then, the anger towards everyone who dared to be alive while her dad and her big brother were dead. Anger towards Ollie for letting her down and simply die when she needed him so much. Anger at her mother because she was so weak. Anger at herself because she was just as weak, and alive, while her brother was dead.

She remembered the time without them, every day a new stone to bury her heart. Eventually it had become so hard she needed alcohol to soften it. And worse. Why didn't it stop beating, her stupid heart, with all the pain and hopelessness around?

It rained again but Thea didn't feel it as she ran out to the gravestones, just like she had five years ago. The stone had laughed at her then, a silent reminder of her loss, as if it wasn't enough to sleep next to an empty room. As if she wouldn't know it, wherever she went.  
Now, it as Thea laughing at the stone, and she was feeling light. Light as a feather, light as she should have felt when she was twelve.

"I knew it", she shouted at the marble, "I told he wasn'tdead! I knew it! I knew it!" The stone didn't answer, of course, it never did. It just stood there in the darkness, and it was beautiful. Everything was beautiful suddenly.

"He's back" Thea's voice had gone down to a whisper, as if speaking it out too loud would scare her brother away again. "He's back, finally. Ollie's here." It had been five years since she had cried the last time. Five years since the big house up on the hill had meant "home" to her.

"I'm gonna have you ripped out" she promised to the stone, grinning mischievously. So much was going to change. Ollie was back, he was really back home. She had felt his arms around her, had smelled him… different from what she remembered, so much wilder and older. Of course, he had changed too. God, he had been on a lonely island for five years.

"But you're here now" she murmured to the stone, addressing her brother in the marble like she had done so often before. Old habits die hard. "You're here and everything's gonna be fine. I know it. I just know it."

For twelve years Leah Queen's life had been a fairytale. Then it had turned into hell. Was it wrong to expect everything turning into a fairytale once again?


	3. Chapter 3

It was strange, reading his own name on a gravestone, but what had he expected? That the world would stop turning while he was on the island? That they would believe in him, just as his father had?

"I'm sorry, dad." Oliver knelt down in front of the second stone. His father was the only one ever to believe in his strength, and he was dead. What did that make of him?

"I didn't think it would be so hard coming back" he confessed quietly, "I didn't think it would be so… I feel like I hardly know anyone. Mum's married Walter, she's… she's happy again. She's started a new life, and I don't know if I fit into it. I guess I should be glad about it. What I'm gonna do… the mission you set me on will not give me much space or time for family." He smiled sadly at the thought of his sister. "_I felt closer to you when you were dead."_

"I'll do it, dad, I'm gonna do what you wanted me to. It's just… I could not even survive on my own. How am I supposed to undo all your faults on my own?"

He regretted his words as soon as he had said it. His father had _died_ for him, after all. He had given up all the years he could have lived with his wife and daughter. Wasn't it the least Oliver could do now to live for his father?

"I'll do it" he promised again as a car stopped behind him. They were going to unearth his own gravestone, Thea had made the call the very afternoon he had returned home.

"I'm gonna make this city better. For her, too. Even though she'll never understand." Automatically, Oliver's mind travelled to another woman whose heart he had broken. By being alive or dead he didn't know.

It was unfair. He could accept it all as a punishment for his own faults, but what had Sara had to do with it? What had Laurel had to do with it?

Oliver closed his eyes. He would live for his father's last wish now, but that wasn't what had made him survive for five years.  
And no arrow would get him back into Laurel's heart.

"Mr. Queen? We would need you to…"  
"Yes, of course." Quickly Oliver stood up and made way for the two men to dig out the stone. Soon the five years of his death would be gone, left without a trace. Yes, somehow he was back.

And somehow, a part of him had just died.


	4. Chapter 5

„What happened to you, Ollie? What happened to us?"

God, she sounded like a star from a soap opera. And she wasn't even talking to a stone anymore. She was talking to plain grass.  
Thea grinned at herself, her anger at everyone finally turned into self-contempt. So much for her fairytale. She had thought everything would be back to normal now that her brother was alive and home. Now she found herself behaving like a freak, and too afraid to talk to anybody who was able to answer her.

"I'm sorry", she whispered into the air. "I don't know what went wrong, I just… I know you can't talk about what happened on that island yet. I accept that. And I know that I'm not… maybe not the right one to talk with about all this. But you can't go on like that. You've got to let someone in. And…"  
It never had been hard to talk to her brother. From the moment she could walk she had followed Oliver around. She was tired of her old nickname now, but she missed the girl she had been then. Speedy and Ollie against the rest of the world.  
Now she felt more alone than ever, and it was stupid – stupid because she didn't have to be alone anymore. Her brother was alive. All she had been praying for had come true.

Now she simply had to get through to the man she once had sworn to know better than anyone else in the world – well, except for Laurel maybe.

"I love you, Ollie, but I'm scared. I'm scared I'm gonna lose you again, it's like you're just here for… you've not come here to be home and live with us. I don't know what you're up to or why, but I know there's something keeping you here and it's not us. It's not even Laurel anymore. And as much as I am happy to have you back, I… I want you to be happy. And I know you're not… happy… here. With us." Her voice faded with every word.  
Thea buried her face in her hands. All she had to do now was go over to her brother's room, open it without knocking, and get the speech out before she had time to rethink it.

But what if Ollie decided to leave her then? What if all she feared was true and he would be gone forever? What if… no, she couldn't. Angrily Thea wiped over her face, she was tired of starting to cry. She was not a child anymore, for heaven's sake. "I love you, Ollie" she told the grass, "and I can live with your not talking to me, I just can't… I can't lose you again." She turned around and quickly left the place.

Oliver slowly breathed out. He stayed in the shadow of the rock next to his father's grave till he was sure Thea was out of sight, then he stood up and crawled to the spot she had just stood at.  
He had failed. Oliver closed his eyes as the memory of his baby sister's pain overwhelmed him.  
"I'm sorry, Speedy. I'm so sorry."

It broke his heart to realize that she was not even able to talk to him anymore. What had he done? When had things turned so difficult? Why couldn't he fulfill his father's last wish and be there for his family? Could that be the right way, saving others by destroying the ones you loved?

"I love you, Thea, but I can't tell you anything about what I'm doing. You're right, there's a lot changed. But behind it all, I'm still the same. And I'll always protect you."  
She would never accept that.  
Five years ago, he might have got away with that, but not now.


End file.
